water changes

[Yeaulman]

I was just talking to my instructor at school and he has a salt water reef tank setup at home and never does water changes. He watches the water quality all the time but says that his eco system inside the tank is setup and doing all the work for him.

Is there any way to get this for a freshwater setup? And how often should I change the water in my tank. I have a 20 gallon that is quite heavily planted and the last water change I did was 2 weeks ago and all my levels are safe according to the lps where I get all my water tested.

 

[K-Holed]

The main reason for doing water changes are to reduce the levels of nitrates and unwanted nutrients in the water and also to give you an opertunity to "vacum" the substrate. Some people do this every week, or every 2 weeks and some more than twice a week! In most circumstances it is hard to do too many water changes as long as you follow good practice in the process of doing so. At the very least I'd suggest doing at least a 20% water change every 2 weeks. just keep an eye on your nitrate levels as these can become toxic at high levels and are usually symptamatic of not performing enough water changes.